I’m a regular speaker at these Bootcamps and SMX shows across Australia and New Zealand, but despite being a 10 year conference veteran, I always learn something new. (By the way, the photo is me handing over a voucher for Search Engine College training to the value of $1,495 to a lucky Bootcamp attendee).

Today’s event was fairly small compared to the larger SMX-branded events, but I actually found the smaller crowd both switched-on and highly engaging. I’m not sure if it was because many of them were small to medium businesses rather than staff of large ad agencies or marketing departments, but these guys were truly interested in what we had to say and how they could use the information immediately.

Many audience members made the effort to track me down during the breaks or after the show to ask questions or simply let me know how much they took away from my session.  Quite a few of the attendees run their own companies and (like me) are responsible for all marketing, advertising and management aspects of their business. They desperately needed SEO, PPC and Social Media explained to them in 30 minutes grabs, minus the industry jargon and in real actionable terms that they could implement NOW. As impossible as that sounds, I think we actually delivered that today.

I spoke about one of my favorite subjects, How to use Twitter for Business (watch this space for a summary) and it was rewarding to see a few light bulbs go off in the crowd as they worked out how they could apply some of the case studies I presented to their own businesses, whether they were a one person company or part of a multi-national corporation.

But what really struck me about today was that the attendees were really keen to share what they knew about the subject matter (whether learned today or in the past) with other attendees. There was genuine excitement in the break out sessions where people were just completely open and honest about their own experiences in the marketing space, the successess and failures, and a willingness to share and learn that I haven’t witnessed at a conference for a couple of years.

At larger shows I’ve been to in the past, attendees tend to be quite secretive about what they do, who they work for, what agencies they use and what methodologies they employ. Not today. Today was all about connecting, engaging and sharing as much as possible. I’m convinced this is a by-product of our increasing involvement with social media. I sense that sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and so on are encouraging us to talk to each other again.

I overheard lots of conversations that began with “I follow you on Twitter” or “I saw your Facebook post the other day” or “I heard you ask for information about X – here’s a link that might help”. Despite the generational hype that we have lost our ability to communicate without a modem, I actually think our sense of community is returning.

Bring it on I say.

Vortala was founded in 2003 with a vision to provide licensed professionals (doctors, dentists, lawyers, accountants…) with a world-class website service designed to grow their practice.

You’ll report to the Manager, Client Service and assume responsibility for:

• Ongoing development of SEO initiatives to improve website traffic results for all clients.
• Managing a small SEO team to implement the SEO regime for each client.
• Liaise with clients and colleagues to solve complex SEO issues.
• Undertake SEO cases as required.

To secure an interview, you should possess; management/supervisory experience, advanced local SEO skills and intermediate technical skills including website content management and HTML.

This is a telecommuting (virtual) career opportunity and so you can be based anywhere in North America (or a nearby time zone). You’ll work flexible hours and liaise with clients and team members around the world.

Apply today and enjoy the career benefits and opportunities of working with a fast growing, International company.

Salary Range: Unknown
Closing Date: Unknown
More Info From: Vortala Careers 
Contact: please apply via online link at: Vortala apply online

For more search industry job vacancies, or to post a job vacancy visit Search Engine College Jobs Board.

It went something like this:

Me: “Look at that, she’s making a business from broken china. I love how innovative kiwis are.”

Him: “No they’re not.

Me: “Yes they are”.

Him. “They *think* they are, but they’re not.”

Me: “Two words for you: Number 8 Wire.”

Him: “That’s three words.”

Me: “Shut up.”

Him: “Kiwis are too isolated to be innovative.”

Me: “That’s total crap! How the heck do you think they became so innovative? They were forced to innovate because of tyranny of distance, to quote Tim Finn.”

Him: “Who’s Tim Finn?”

Me: “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Him: “Is that someone you met on Twitter?”

Me: “#%%**&^!!”

Him: “Ok, so name some innovations that came from New Zealand.”

Me: “I already did.”

Him: “Something not related to farming.”

Me: “SilverStripe. Weta Workshops…”

Him: “Not…”

Me: “The first iPhone app in the world.”

Him: “I didn’t…”

Me: “Jet boats… bungy jumping… Pavlova.”

Him: “That’s not an innovation, that’s a dessert”.

Me: “A very innovative and complex dessert”.

Him: “You’re kidding.”

Me: “Xero software… America’s Cup yachts.”

Him: “You’re forgetting the long drop toilet.”

Me: “The long drop toilet….”

Him: “Oh come on!”

Me: “Ski planes, egg beaters and… ooh! I know – Webstock.”

Him: “Ok, fine. You win.”

And that’s pretty much why I’m here in Wellington this week. Webstock is as much a celebration of kiwi ingenuity and bravado as it is a web conference.

As I recently learned from the article Raising Webstock, the whole she-bang started out as a bunch of geeks meeting at the library to discuss web standards. This progressed into regular gigs featuring guest speakers, which in turn led to discussions about organizing a proper web conference to be held in New Zealand.

But organizers Mike Brown and Natasha Lampard were insistent that it should be less of a formal conference and more of a geek love-in where they could meet and mingle with Internet legends. Rejecting advice from important conference types, in true Kiwi spirit, they forged ahead with their ingenious plan.

According to legend (well @hadyngreen anyway) during discussions over a few wines one night, Natasha announced:

“Fuck it, let’s get Tim Berners-Lee!”

And get him they did. Berners-Lee opened the inaugral Webstock in 2006 via video link up and the rest is history. Serendipity may have played a role, but so did balls. This joyous combination has created the world’s best unconference that is now in its 6th year.

I don’t say *world’s best* lightly. I’ve attended bags of web conferences and I can assure you that Webstock is the finest of them all. You don’t attract speakers like Amanda Palmer, John Gruber, Ze Frank, Bruce Sterling and Merlin Mann without a radical reputation. And you don’t get speakers like David Recordon, Tom Coates, Amy Hoy and Michael Lopp coming back year after year unless you offer an incredible experience.

And it’s the experience of attending that I get the most from Webstock. Not so much the content of the presentations, although they are usually incredibly inspiring. But no, it’s the thrill of being part of something extraordinary that I cherish the most about Webstock. It’s the only conference I know of where the buzz starts at least a month early – or at least that’s when I feel the need to create a dedicated TweetDeck column for the #webstock hashtag.

Everything about Webstock screams Geek Cool. The barista coffee bar on site, the all-you-can-eat Kapiti icecreams, the grapefruit and lemon Frujus (a new addition for 2011), the Lego building stations, the massage chairs, the luxurious swag, the trading card game, not to mention the incredible after (and after-after) parties. Absolutely no corners are cut for this event and attendees couldn’t be happier. I’ve seen complete strangers high-five each other in the street when they spot matching Webstock gear.

This year’s programme reads like geek viagra. To top off the impressive speaker list, Mike and Natasha have somehow convinced Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley to not only deliver presentations, but also to provide a private concert *just* for Webstockers at the Friday evening wrap party. News of this was enough to make me pay a change-fee penalty and switch my flight home to Saturday.

Such is the prize of being a Webstocker that two Aussie IT guys, desperate to attend after the 2011 event had sold out, turned to begging online this week for help in sourcing the elusive golden tickets.

I feel their pain. I truly didn’t understand how very much Webstock inspires me until I had to miss 2010. I could only watch jealously from afar, scanning the tweetstream, trying to understand the back channel jokes, hanging out for twitpics from the ONYAs, oohing and aahing at the dodgy YouTube version of the amazing $40K light show I’d missed. I was absolutely GUTTED not to be there. And I think my level of guttedness made me love Webstock even more.

So hand me the pavlova – I’m back for the love-in.

“Decided to join @burgerkingNZ & @subwaynz and get Twitter. Follow us for promotions and cool stuff!”

I noticed their account this morning and decided to follow to see how such a major brand would proceed to dip their toe into the Twitterverse. It was like watching a train wreck.

The launch failed on a number of levels:

1) The first tweet basically said they’re only on Twitter because their competitors are. Sorry but the *Me Too* factor is not reason enough to get excited. Neither is “Follow us for cool stuff!” Yawn.

2) Their second tweet was grammatically incorrect: “Wanna win with McDonalds” (missing a question mark). Also, win what? Ok, these are pretty minor issues, but you’d think such a major company would assign somebody with a better grasp of English to represent their brand, wouldn’t you?

3) Their third tweet simply revealed how bored the person manning their Twitter account actually is:

“I think it’s time for McDonalds”

How underwhelming.

4) However, it was their fourth tweet that really scratched FAIL into the golden arches:

“Shakey town Christchurch I think you could do with some McDonald’s #eqnz”

For those of you reading this unfamiliar with the #eqnz hashtag – it stands for Earthquake New Zealand and it was adopted following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake we had last September. As anyone who lives in Christchurch will tell you, we feel a certain ownership of the #eqnz hashtag and do NOT appreciate accounts that use it to spam or promote non-earthquake related content.

After @MaccasNZ included the hashtag in the above tweet, Christchurch-based tweeps became quite vocal about what they saw as blatant abuse of the tag:

@kcolbin tweeted: “@MaccasNZ Please don’t spam the #eqnz hashtag.”

This was followed by retweets by @7point1squared and @WendyDavie.

Then @esoap tweeted: RT @MaccasNZ Shakey town Christchurch I think you could do with some McDonald’s #eqnz * MCD use twitter to spam earthquake thread in NZ

And just like that, New Zealand’s most recognized brand offended their audience. During their first 24 hours on Twitter.

5) Not to be outdone, their 5th tweet reveals they don’t know the difference a possessive and a plural: “Grab one of the McDonald’s dinner box’s tonight”. (Thanks @ThisCJ for pointing out this one!).

Apart from the fact that it has taken the NZ arm of this major brand so long to embrace Twitter, I’m curious as to who they have running their account and whether that person has any solid experience on Twitter. They certainly don’t seem to have twetiquette. Nor do they seem to have a grasp of English grammar.

Somebody just pointed out to me that the account is not verified, so perhaps this isn’t an authentic account. But, if it is (and I’m checking), the brand has gotten off to an awful start. Even if it isn’t verified, this would appear to be a case of brand-jacking that has gone unchecked for more than 24 hours. Neither is a great scenario. McDonalds seem to be having better success with their Facebook account though.

Let this be a lesson – don’t trust just anyone to represent your brand via a Twitter account. It’s not the job for some junior staffer and it’s not the job for your PR department. Marketing staff might be the obvious choice, but you need to find someone who is social, has experience in the medium and has a solid knowledge of your business and target market. Whether that person is internal or external staff doesn’t matter, in my opinion, as long as they’re the right fit.

Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to watch the drama unfold. Dare I say, I’m lovin it.

Postscript 1: The consensus is that this is NOT an official account endorsed or created by McDonalds New Zealand. I’ve tracked down the Twitter accounts for McDonalds marketing and both @McDonaldsCorp and a representative of McDonald’s advertising agency in New Zealand have both denied the account is official and claim to have known nothing about it.

Postscript 2: On their Facebook page, McDonalds New Zealand has publicly responded to my question about @MaccasNZ with the following statement:

“Hi Kalena – nope, that’s not us, but thanks for alerting us – we’re looking into it.”

So there you have it folks. A brand-jacking it was – but instead of satire, the purpose of the @MaccasNZ account appears to have been legitimate promotion that has backfired. Will be interesting to see if they manage to shut it down or replace it with an official account.

Postscript 3: The profile for @MaccasNZ has just been changed from “Official Twitter for McDonalds NZ” to “UN-official Twitter for McDonalds NZ”.  So clearly, some pressure has been applied from Golden Arch HQ.

Postscript 4: Turns out @MaccasNZ *IS* an official account for McDonalds NZ. Two new tweets today reveal the true story behind the account:

“Sorry we got off on the wrong foot. We are a McDonalds franchise acting on behalf of McDonalds New Zealand.”

“Also we are sorry for the mistakes in our tweets, New to twitter and letting certain staff use the account = not a good idea.”

They’ve removed the offending tweet containing the #eqnz hashtag, as well as the one containing the grammatically incorrect apostrophe. The profile for @MaccasNZ has been changed AGAIN to read “A twitter for McDonalds to communicate with its followers from New Zealand.“

So as I suspected, these were the actions of a well-meaning franchisee who created an official account without official permission and assigned the account to an inexperienced staff member.

Great to see them reveal the true nature of the account and fess up to their social media FAIL. Hooray for transparency and well done McDonalds New Zealand for following up.

Following on from their recent partnership with Facebook, Bing have introduced some new social search enhancements to their search results this week.

Now if you conduct a search on Bing and your search results include a specific link that has also been “liked” by your Facebook friend Jane Doe, a “Jane Doe Liked This” message will be highlighted within the Bing search results page.

You can see the *liked* feature highlighted in the attached SERP screengrab (click to zoom).

From Bing’s official blog post:

“Over the last several weeks, we introduced the new *Liked* results feature that uses the basis of your query to surmise your intent and surface relevant stories or websites that your friends on Facebook have liked with a nice answer, called out somewhere on the page. Based on the positive customer feedback, we are taking this feature a step further expanding the results to include even more sites.”

The feature is part of Bing’s new approach to integrate social signals into their algorithm to enhance the searcher’s overall experience.

News broke on TechCrunch this morning after a leaked slide from an internal Yahoo! product team meeting fell into the hands of Eric Marcoullier, who co-founded blog social network MyBlogLog. It has since been removed from YFrog, but the slide depicts three columns titled Sunset / Merge / Make Feature with Del.icio.us, Altavista, MyBlogLog, Yahoo! Bookmarks, AllTheWeb, Yahoo! Picks and Yahoo! Buzz listed under the not so subtle *Sunset* column.

Marcoullier tweeted the slide from his account and then all hell broke loose, with Yahoo Product Manager Blake Irving even threatening to fire whomever leaked the slide.

Del.icio.us fans in particular have been very vocal about the news, voicing their opposition to Yahoo’s decision using Twitter hashtags such as #savedelicious and #delicious and even creating an online petition which can be *signed* by retweeting it. Ironically, many of the top bookmarks at Delicious today featured it’s demise.

The product terminations come the same week Yahoo! announced layoffs for 4 percent of its global staff.

Link History

Twelve years ago, pre-Gooogle, search engines just analyzed content in order to rank sites, says Ian. Linking wasn’t part of the ranking algorithm. Google put paid to that by making links part of the equation. Suddenly, SEO became a lot more difficult.

Ian explained Term Vector Analysis (TVA) and Citation Analysis and how they influenced the concept of links. TVA is how keywords appear on a page (relevance). Citation Analysis is the influence of keywords on a page (authority). Google was built by students who were using citation analysis on a daily basis. Keyword density isn’t used by search engines. However, it is kinda similar to term vector analysis, which IS used by search engines.

Every web page stored in Google has a term profile containing number of times a keyword is used, density, proximity, position etc. Google then looks for clusters of terms that appear in proximity to the search phrase and finds the Representative Average to display in the SERPs. The process of TVA is excellent at figuring out informational pages such as Wikipedia pages.

The problem is that TVA can’t give search engines the entire picture – it’s difficult for them to tell the difference between spam and awesomeness. This is how search engines worked up until Google. Then Google came along and threw links into the equation. The more links you had to the page, the higher rank you would have in the SERPs.

Typically, the better writing, the worse the SEO, because good writers use flowery, descriptive language.

Types of Links

Now, to rank, you need three kinds of links:

1) Authority (aged)

2) Relevance (current)

3) Buzz (social)

So you need a combination of old and new links. Therefore you need to be constantly building links!

Stinking Linking – reference to articles by Mike Grehan about the prob with aged domains and links.

Link Quality

Link page quality is measured by:

• PageRank of the page
• cached
• nofollow
• number of other links on page
• topic

Remember that it’s the PR of the PAGE that’s important, not the PR of the domain or main site. So if someone is offering you a link and bragging about having a PR4 on their home page, but your link is going to go on a inner page that has PR0, there’s no value there.

Page sculpting is not as influential now. No point no-following all your links on a page as they all leak PR anyway.

Sources of Links:

• Seeds – Yahoo, DMOZ
• Directories and connections
• competitors (meet then beat)
• articles and blog posts
• widgets
• reviews
• case studies
• contests and publicity
• profiles
• social media
• internal linking campaign
• link reclamation
• pick up the phone!

Ian suggests starting any link campaign with your own site. Make sure you are cross linking internal pages. Then go and do link reclamation – check your 404s in Webmaster Tools to see if anyone is linking in to pages that no longer exist and ask them to update.

As an idea to attract links, Ian suggests holding a contest e.g. school laptop giveaway – put the rules of the contest on your web site and then the school / parents etc link to your web page for the rules.

Anchor text is virtual content. Rule of thumb is, if you wouldn’t spam your web site with the same keyword phrase, don’t do the same with your link building. Mix and match the anchor text linking to your pages and ask people linking to you to do the same.

Deep links are the best links. Don’t ask everyone to link to your home page! You’ll get better crawls and better rankings and your audience gets a higher quality experience if you inner pages are well-linked. Plus the crawler starts at inner pages that it might have missed before.

Tools for Link Building:

• Opensiteesxplorer.com
• Seo-browser.com
• Google Toolbar
• SEO Quake

Link Don’ts:

• Use Free For All (FFA) links
• Off topic links
• Non-editorial
• Obviously purchased links

Google is inviting businesses to apply to have a Business Photo Shoot – where photographs of your business will be taken by Google Streetview staff (the guys that drive around photographing all the roads for Google Maps).

Apart from being a free service, the advantage here is that the photos of your business will appear on your Google Places listing, giving you not only another channel to impress potential customers, but also building up trust about your business in the eyes of Google.

At the SMX Melbourne conference last week, one of the speakers suggested that companies taking part in the Business Photo Shoot may well be given a slight boost in their Google Places rankings because Google has endorsed them and verified their legitimacy. While Google obviously hasn’t made any announcement to this effect, it makes sense that businesses known to Google might be given some type of advantage over businesses Google hasn’t verified.

So I would highly recommend you apply to participate in the scheme! At this stage, only businesses in the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are eligible to participate and only select cities in those countries. Apply here for your Business Photo Shoot.

I jumped on Twitter about 20 minutes after it happened, as did many people throughout Christchurch and the rest of New Zealand. But what amazed me was that some Christchurch tweeps managed to jump onto their Twitter account DURING the quake itself and tweet from under their tables and doorways.

The fact that people were putting their Twitter addiction above their personal safety is a bit alarming, but it’s also an incredible endorsement of Twitter and brings home the impact of social media as a whole on our psyche.

I think back to the last earthquake I witnessed first-hand, the 1989 Newcastle, Australia earthquake (which was only a Richter magnitude 5.6 by the way, making this week’s earthquake 15 times stronger!) and the only connection I had to other people affected by the quake was over the neighbor’s fence until the power came back on a few hours later and the TV reports started dribbling in. Phones were jammed, information was scarce and nobody seemed to really know what happened for hours and hours.

The ability for us to receive news and summon emergency resources instantly is one of Twitter’s best, albeit accidental, advantages. It goes beyond the boundaries of social media and becomes a vital communications tool. Even with all the clever applications that have been developed using the Twitter API, the impact of Twitter’s original functionality in emergency situations like the Christchurch earthquake cannot be underestimated.

I’ve been collecting the first 3 tweets from people after (and even during!) the quake. Emotions were running high, so the f-bomb features in some. If you’re a prude, you might want to look away now. I have linked to the actual tweets as well so you can see their time stamps.

First Tweets After Earthquake at 4.35am, Saturday 4 September 2010:

From: @kalena

• QUAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  (http://bit.ly/davzRM)
• Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck 7.2 earthquake 30 km from here. We are camping in car right now (http://bit.ly/aEtwO4)
• Quite a bit of damage to our house I fear. Glass breaking, lots of things falling as we ran out. What a horrible way to wake up #earthquake (http://bit.ly/bvkdCO)

From: @polarbearfarm

• Holy crap. This is the big one! giant earthquake!  (http://bit.ly/cuULLq)
• Jesus christ that was scary! Power out everywhere. 4:30 am here! Big earthquake! (http://bit.ly/aEtwO4)
• Damage, boundary fence down http://yfrog.com/mwsavkj. (http://bit.ly/aERIvO)

From: @swiftynz

• My god that was a big earthquake!!! #CHCHQuake (http://bit.ly/c79Bk7)
• Fish have made a bid for freedom, tank has a huge hole (http://bit.ly/cgt1Hl)
• @libbydallison @richzilla @alastairboyes I’m tweeting from the doorway (http://bit.ly/dzGMCB)

From: @kylierichardson

• :( lots of broken stuff at our place including my great grandmas vase #chchearthquake (http://bit.ly/dkQ1UA)
• Streetlights all out by our place. At home power ok #earthquake (http://bit.ly/9mvO0e)
• @Stockhausens scary stuff! Ok though (http://bit.ly/cnOw3s)

From: @zurtle

• Um, like was there an earthquake or something? ;-) @RosieNZ is having massive aftershocks quivering in her doggy boots (http://bit.ly/aVBhA8)
• My TV fell over. Unimpressed. (http://bit.ly/aDiaDO)
• RT @BreakingNews 7.4 prelimary magnitude earthquake strikes New Zealand 4 miles from Christchurch – USGS http://bit.ly/cipHXC (http://bit.ly/aaICHo)

From: @lilGin

• And the one day I don’t charge my phone we lose all power. Fuck you Murphy and your laws! #earthquake (http://bit.ly/cTYp4u)
• My living area/kitchen smells like a mixture of peaches, pickles, some sort of vinegar type substance. #earthquake (http://bit.ly/d7H5H2)
• Bet people are wishing they had thought about how to “get thru”. I am. We don’t even have batteries! #earthquake (http://bit.ly/cISpTa)

From: @serenity22

• just got power back in Riccarton/Ilam #nzeq (http://bit.ly/aoH1ge)
• @MsPraxis  – all ok, no damage to the house apart from some hairline cracks in ceiling. bit of breakage, nothing major. shocks still coming (http://bit.ly/bf7oG0)
• had to go find the old fixed line phone to save the cell (http://bit.ly/cpg84W)

From: @crashhelmet

• Jesus. Huge earthquake (http://bit.ly/b1q6oY)
• RT @kalena: New Zealand Christchurch hit by a Magnitude 7.4 earthquake: http://wp.me/pSkHj-cO. (http://bit.ly/cker9z)
• Surreal day after the earthquake. My poor town is a bit battered and bruised. So glad no fatalities. A miracle really. (http://bit.ly/bIIU39)

From: @benkepes

• Earthquake – long and rolling…. (http://bit.ly/dv3TPl)
• @scottjpalmer @nztechtweet @PolarBearFarm @rachel_a crazy long here in Waipara…. (http://bit.ly/aLsZji)
• @ZoliErdos not sure – lasted a good minute though. power out down the road in the city (http://bit.ly/b7IC4R)

From: @kevinnz

• Christchurch it’s still rock and roll! Make sure your family is ok #quake (http://bit.ly/d7ChN7)
• Repertory theatre bricks all over kilmore street #eqnz (http://bit.ly/ce107c)
• Garage is a mess. Oh no not the bike #eqnz http://yfrog.com/nav2xoj (http://bit.ly/dqlO4y)

From: @Aupajo

• Survived #earthquake. Everyone all right? (http://is.gd/eXbRS)
• Oh, and just like that were back to making blasé tweets. (http://is.gd/eXbRR)
• Sweet Cthulhu, not the bagels. http://yfrog.com/6bjbqoj (http://is.gd/eXbRQ)

From: @kiwiscotsman

• Massive earthquake. Powers out. Apparetly it’s the west coast. Everyone ok? (http://bit.ly/9ABC5l)
• Hope everyone is ok. (http://bit.ly/9jaamQ)
• Who in chch has power and where are you if you do (http://bit.ly/aWCav6)

From: @bronmarshall

• Holy cow what a way to wake up! (http://ht.ly/2Anvp)
• Only just got Internet back up pantry a mess, lots on the ground centered right under us basically fuck (http://ht.ly/2AnvJ)
• Another after shock (http://ht.ly/2AnvS)

From: @Craig_Forster

• 7.4 earthquake. I’ve never run so fast to get Luka up (http://bit.ly/9Nqs7U)
• Power still out. Aftershakes still rattling us. Anyone need help? (http://bit.ly/cdeGIS)
• With the power out I can’t open the garage to go anywhere I Might stay at home and stab any looters (http://bit.ly/bJH8OB)

From: @rachel_a

• That was the most massive earthquake! (http://bit.ly/btKl9D)
• Another aftershock. Half the china cabinet gone #earthquake (http://bit.ly/aLixQg)
• RT @ShakingEarth New Zealand Christchurch hit by a Magnitude 7.4 earthquake: http://wp.me/pSkHj-cO (http://bit.ly/bJ1rQh)

From: @mrsgooding

• OMG. Strong earthquake in Christchurch! Power is out! Can still feel aftershocks. Scary! Stay safe everyone!
  (http://twitter.com/mrsgooding/status/22902588202)
• @WendyDavie it sure is! Never experienced anything as massive as this #Christchurch #earthquake!
  (http://twitter.com/mrsgooding/status/22902783019)
• @TimothyNewman massive quake ever! Still having aftershocks! Bloody scary! Your family with you now? Power is out! Ack! (http://twitter.com/mrsgooding/status/22904101844)

From: @kiwichrish

• OMG. Shit’nnn (http://twitter.com/kiwichrish/status/22902721476)
• Aftershock. Rolling sensation…. (http://twitter.com/kiwichrish/status/22903645979)
• Ok… Lots broken, power out, ups’s beeping. Welcome to nz (http://twitter.com/kiwichrish/status/22903555865)

From: @NatashaUtting

• wow… I think that was the biggest earthquake I’ve ever felt. Where was the epicentre? (http://twitter.com/NatashaUtting/status/22903547063)
• aftershocks! No power here and wireless down. Tweeting from phone. Shit that was bad in a lockwood! (http://twitter.com/NatashaUtting/status/22903691623)
• @Motmunter is there actually damage to your house? You got power over there? (http://twitter.com/NatashaUtting/status/22903830515)

From: @matt_dempsey

• Major tremor sth island NZ. Chch (http://twitter.com/matt_dempsey/status/22902506494)
• Aftershock (http://twitter.com/matt_dempsey/status/22903637332)
• Still aftershocks after 1hr. Chch quake (http://twitter.com/matt_dempsey/status/22906299983)

From: @Motmunter

• Where the fuck did that come from? Are you all alive? Everything on the floor. Cracks in the wall… (http://twitter.com/Motmunter/status/22903193027)
• Surprised we have power and twitter (http://twitter.com/Motmunter/status/22903508490)
• best quake ever. Ever. There goes Another big aftershock. Everyone freaked out. don’t like the structural damage to house @kittenypentland (http://twitter.com/Motmunter/status/22903690532)

From: @kcolbin

• @rachel_a Thanks, girl! You ok after this morning’s adventures? (http://bit.ly/b6kFLq)
• Power back on now. Holy moley, that was scary :(  (http://bit.ly/bWFghd)
• @rachel_a Dang, I should go to Fava! Good idea! We’ve got power back now, had been cooking up a storm in our campervan :-)  (http://bit.ly/csQL5q)

More will be added as they come in.

What were your first 3 tweets after the quake? If you want to contribute, please @reply me links to them at @kalena with #firstthreetweets as your hashtag or simply add links to them in the comments below.

The quake measured 7.1 on the Richter scale and was only 10km deep, making it the most destructive earthquake in New Zealand since the 7.8 quake that devastated Hawkes Bay back in 1938.

Unbelievably, there has been not a single loss of life. This has been put down to the timing of the earthquake, when very few people were in the city centre where most of the damage occurred.  Most of us were in our beds, sleeping peacefully, only to have our slumber completely shattered by our houses twisting and turning under our feet and objects falling onto us in our beds. It was, without a doubt, the single most terrifying event in my life.

So many people have escaped injury, even as their houses have crumbled around them. We were lucky in that our cement block house remained completely intact and structurally sound, despite cupboards flinging themselves open, books falling off shelves and cabinets toppling over. As we woke up to the devastation to friends’ houses and beautiful historic buildings of our city, we became so very aware of how lucky we were and how grateful to still be here to talk about it.

Aftershocks are still rocking the city every hour or so and each one brings down more parts of already damaged buildings. But as a whole, our city is SO VERY LUCKY. It could have been so much worse if the earthquake had occurred even a couple of hours later. I write this post mainly to let people know I am ok, my family is ok and our businesses continue to run. For Search Engine College, it’s business as usual, although students may experience delays in assignment grading as Internet access appears to still be sketchy. Blog posts here will resume shortly also.

A very big thank you to those of you who have emailed or tweeted me messages of concern. I’m so touched, particularly by those complete strangers who have been long term readers of my blog and just wanted to reach out and let me know they were thinking of me – I really appreciate it.

I have been tweeting about the quake since 20 minutes after it happened and I’m not alone. With no power, water or radio, Twitter was our lifeline to the outside world after the quake. To me, one of the most interesting aspects of the disaster was the use of social media. I’ve been collecting the first 3 tweets from people after the quake and they’ll be the subject of a future blog post. What were your first 3 tweets after the quake? If you want to contribute, please @reply me links to them at @kalena with #firstthreetweets as your hashtag.

[UPDATE : Read the First Tweets After the Christchurch Earthquake]

Meanwhile, below are some earthquake resources that you might find interesting:

Christchurch Earthquake Resources

Earthquake Photos:

• http://www.crashbang.co.nz/quake040910/index.html?ref=nf
• http://www.flickr.com/groups/eqnz/

Aftershock Maps:

• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671497
• http://www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz
• http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/recent_quakes.html

GeoNet Earthquake info:

• http://www.geonet.org.nz/earthquake/quakes/3366146g.html (detail about the big one)
• http://www.geonet.org.nz/news/article-sep-4-2010-christchurch-earthquake.html
• http://www.geonet.org.nz/news/sep-2010-darfield-earthquake/gns-science-response.html

Latest Updates:

• http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10671408
• http://canterburyearthquake.org.nz/

Personal Stories:

• The Press Earthquake Story Map
• In the Aftermath of the Earthquake by @kcolbin
• Journal of an Earthquake by @benkepes
• A Family Diary – Surviving the Christchurch Earthquake by @mrsgooding

How You Can Help:

• Buy This Quake Tshirt. $5 from every sale goes to the Canterbury Red Cross Earthquake Appeal
• Donate $5 to Christchurch City Mission’s Earthquake Appeal: http://bit.ly/asyfzX
• Other ways to donate: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/promotions/news/article.cfm?c_id=500848&objectid=10671104

Thank you