Chris’ comment begins like this:

Interesting, but I can’t help but think it’s also rather flawed.

For example, let’s say some leading light in community says “Lets all post our website addresses!” and the rest of the community accordingly tweets their URLs, your algorithm isn’t going to pick that up if it’s only looking at personally references, named-checks and RTs. That person is clearly quite influential though.

Here’s Dollywagon’s response to this interesting point:

We think people who have the ability to galvanise everyone else to do stuff like you suggest can usually do so for 1 of 2 reasons.

The first reason is that someone has had a blinder of an idea with a life of its own that makes perfect viral material. We see this stuff on the web all the time because the web is a very big place with lots of people randomly producing really mad stuff. The same can also be said about people who are first on the scene with an epic piece of news that everyone else wants to know about.

But it’s very rare indeed for a single individual to create a piece of viral content during their own lifetime that goes on to become a huge viral hit on the web. The Influence Engine couldn’t predict which ‘outlier’ is going to release the next viral craze any more than the world’s best minds could predict the winner of next year’s Derby.

Nonetheless, you have given us an idea – we can actually track the appearance of URLs in #NEfollower hashtags and analyse the way they get propagated around the network. We’ll give this a go and see what happens.

The second reason why someone might be able to get lots of other people to follow their lead as you suggest would be because an individual already has a lot of credibility, prestige or authority in their network or community. These are exactly the type of people that the Influence Engine will pin-point because the pattern of their network relationships (or topological profile) will have betrayed the esteem in which they’re generally held.

Chris’ comment continues:

Similarly, if someone is adding the tag too *all* their tweets and the community choruses for them to stop with “@name please stop spamming”, your algorithm is going to push the spammer to the up the influence ranking when really their actions should be pushing them down.

It is pretty though, and that’s something.

And here’s Dollywagon’s response to this perceptive point.

If a person does get ‘flamed’ by a community in the way you suggest, they will of course get picked up very quickly by the Influence Engine. In normal projects we usually take regular snap-shots of a community and track the relative rise and fall of its members over time.

The most influential and respected members of the community tend to maintain their prestige over the long term, but the people who get ‘flamed’ tend to shoot up and then crash down to earth like fireworks on bonfire night. This makes them very easy to spot.

As we continue to monitor the #NEfollowers community we’ll get to know the network gurus and recognise the spammers and flamers for what they really are.

Thanks also, Chris, for your compliment about the image – I’m pleased you like it. You might like to click through to this network image too.

Dollywagon has developed an Influence Engine that can pin-point the key leaders, influencers and idea creators in any online community or network.

The fantastic @canny_lass has suggested we use the Influence Engine to study the community on Twitter that’s using the #NEfollowers hashtag.

We thought this was a great idea and have resolved give it a try until we either get bored or you beg us to stop.

We’ve set up the Influence Engine to capture every interaction on Twitter between people using #NEfollowers. It works by deploying more than 40 network analysis algorithms to analyse a person’s success in getting their messages or Twitter @ID to be propagated in tweets that contain the #NEfollowers hash tag.

This will reveal the most important , significant or influential members of the #NEfollowers community on Twitter. And it knocks the socks off any flaky buzz-metrics analysis that you might be familiar with.

You can read more about the science behind the Influence Engine here.

Here’s our first image of the network – individual tweeters are represented by the circles, or ‘nodes’. The bigger the node the more network influence it has (only the most influential nodes have been labelled to keep things simple).

click to enlarge

The table below reveals our first Top 40 list of #NEfollowers. It’s based on just the latest 1500 tweets (due to Twitter API restrictions) that contain the hashtag. But as the days and weeks progress we’ll be able to collect every NE#followers tweet to gain a definitive picture of the community.

click to enlarge

At present the list of #NEfollowers is ranked by General Network Influence. For the graph-theory enthusiasts among you (and I know there are lots out there…) this is a simple blend of ‘Indegree Single’ and ‘Page Rank’ network metrics.

If your Twitter @ID appears in the list, here’s why it’s there. The ‘Indegree Single’ algorithm tells us how often you are personally referenced, named-checked or RT’ed by the rest of the #NEfollowers community. This is information is then ‘blended’ with data from our ‘Page Rank’ algorithm to tell us how much ‘network coolness’ you have.

For instance, if you’ve got loads of people picking up your tweets, that’s cool. But if all the people picking up your tweets (i.e. the people you hang out with) are ‘network dorks’, that makes you a lot less cool.

If you’re concerned by your apparent ‘network-dorkiness’, don’t worry. As we collect more tweets the picture will change and your network ranking may well improve. We’ll also try to introduce new measures of ‘network cool’ as we get more familiar with the community.

As we embark on this experiment we’d really appreciate your feedback. We’re a North East-based business with big ambitions and we’d love to hear your ideas about how we can make the Influence Engine better.

Please use the comments box below and we’ll do our best to respond to every message.

p.s. if you want to know how the Influence Engine weeds out spammers read this

Technology companies have been pushing video calling for at least the past six or seven years but it’s never really taken off. The big question is “why?” This article will suggest an answer and then pose a new question. Is Apple just the latest in a long line of James T Kirk wannabes that have failed to understand why people don’t like video calling?

Back in 2004 I was involved with a youth research study in the UK called R.O.A.R. (Right Of Admission Reserved) that ran a unique “placement & observation” exercise with Hutchinson 3G (known today simply as 3).

Hutchinson provided R.O.A.R with a batch of the latest 3G video-mobile handsets, all of them loaded with unlimited call credit. We gave these handsets to a group of twenty 16-24 year olds and let them keep the 3G phones for a two-week period. Then we just stood back and watched what happened.

What R.O.A.R. discovered was quite shocking and more than a little depressing for Hutchinson. Our young subjects were outraged by the poor network coverage and reception of the new phones and appalled by their short battery life.

“My Nokia has a stand-by time of 2 weeks. This 3G phone barely lasts 2 minutes.” Male 15-24

They also seemed genuinely offended to be given a whizzy new gadget that couldn’t fulfil even the basic requirements of a normal mobile phone. One young guy told us:

“It’s pointless launching a phone that doesn’t work as a phone – you’d have to carry two handsets with you and have two contracts.” Male 15-24

After two weeks some of our young people angrily handed back their 3G phones and said they didn’t want the equipment in their sight ever again.

Looking back at this research it’s clear that, thanks to crap technology performance, video calling has so far failed to recover from the worst of all possible starts. But it’s probably fair to say that handset manufacturers have largely overcome these kinds of handset issues and we can safely expect the iPhone 4G to be a pleasure to live with.

However, there were other concerns raised by the R.O.A.R. study that lead one to question Steve Jobs’ enthusiasm for ‘Facetime’. The first concern is the breadth of the likely ‘Facetime’ user base – only people who own an iPhone 4G and use the same mobile network provider will be able to make video calls. As one young girl told us in 2004:

“If your whole crowd of friends had [a 3G video phone] it would be wicked, but they don’t because it’s so new.” Female 15-24

The danger here is that the number of Facetime users in any person’s social graph will be so patchy that the service will simply fall off the radar due to lack of use. But other concerns about video calling were more fundamental and went right to the heart of the technology’s limitations. One young guy told us:

“My brother-in-law has 3G already so I was video-calling him. It’s funny, we normally get on really well, but those calls felt a bit awkward.” Male 15-24

People generally reported that video conversations tended to feel stilted and less fluid than normal voice-only calls. This could have been due to unfamiliarity with the technology that would probably subside with experience.

However, other evidence from the research suggested this wasn’t the case and that video-calling gave rise to many unintended consequences. Here’s what one young girl told us:

“You can’t really use a video phone because the men are only looking at your chest.” Female 15-24

This problem gets right to the heart of social communication and reveals what geeky techno-engineers often fail to understand. Let’s fast forward to 2010.

Imagine being woken by your lovely new iPhone 4G after a heavy night out on the town. You squint bleary eyed at the screen and discover your relatively new boyfriend is on the line and wants some quality ‘Facetime’ with you. It goes without saying that if he sees you in this state you’ll never get to walk up the aisle with him. But more to the point, you also seem to be sharing a bed with your naked ex-boy friend.

If you don’t accept his ‘Facetime’ request, your current boyfriend will be suspicious. If you do he’ll probably forget that you look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards and want to know who the hairy arm belongs to at the edge of the video picture.

The unavoidable fact is this – video calling can cause more social problems than it actually resolves. People enjoy the voyeuristic potential of 3G video phones, but find being ‘viewed’ or ‘observed’ a quite uncomfortable and potentially risky experience.

In contrast we should consider the perennial popularity of good ol’ low-fi SMS. Although considered technologically basic, the core communication function of SMS is unlikely to be surpassed.

One of the most attractive things about texting is its “you can’t see me” advantage. Texting gives people an important element of privacy and control whilst making themselves available for communication at all times.

For instance, people still get incredibly excited and giggly when a text arrives. We often use SMS to flirt with minimum risk of embarrassment whilst sussing out how the land lies with a potential new squeeze. And nobody gets to see your cheeks flush.

This is an important point. Human communication is rarely transparent and truthful – we all find it convenient to tell fibs, mislead or hide things as the need arises.

A simple technology like SMS can take things even further – it’s easy to use, you don’t need to be elaborate with it and you can deal with new messages when it suits you. SMS is treasured as much for what it can help you avoid as for what it can enable you to do. It may be a simple technology but SMS actually represents a socially advanced method of communication.

It’s clear that ‘Facetime’ offers none of these benefits. It may be very technologically advanced but consumer research suggests it might actually be socially primitive. Most consumers don’t share the geek-engineer’s nostalgic fantasy of owning a video communication device like cartoon hero Dick Tracey.

Instead most people want something much more seductive and socially advanced. I want something that offers me and my mates more opportunities to flirt, fib, avoid one another, keep in touch and generally have a laugh. Something quite like SMS or Facebook, perhaps?

We’re really happy to explain the principles of network science that power the Influence Engine, but one of the challenges we face with media folk is getting them to ‘think network’.

Knowing a little bit about network science can really help marketers and media professionals to create better advertising campaigns, but many of the core ideas and concepts often seem quite weird to people steeped in conventional media practice.

Through a process of trial and error I’ve developed simple stories that gently ease new-comers into the network science swimming pool. After many discussions with people in media and advertising I’ve discovered that sketching out simple network drawings is the best way to de-mystify network science and engage people with this incredible new frontier of marketing information.

In response to popular demand I’ve therefore set up a video camera in our office and created 4 short films that introduce the basics of network analysis to interested rookies.

You can view the movies via the following Youtube links:

I have no doubts that my efforts are far from perfect, but I would be very grateful for any feedback on these movies. I’m also very happy for anyone to use them if they help to explain the exciting potential of network science.

As the leaders of the three main political parties wrestle with the challenge of forming a coalition government, the UK’s political Twitteratti have gone into overdrive.

We used the Influence Engine to analyse political activity on Twitter for the period 1200hrs Fri 7th May until 1200hrs Mon 10th May (today). Our analysis looked at an individual’s success in having their tweets picked up and distributed to other people within the network of Twitter’s politico-sphere. Here is the list of the UK’s Top 30 most influential tweeters on political subjects (click to enlarge).

We’ve also continued with our analysis of the General Election Hash Tag Cloud from Twitter. In this latest image for Sun 9th May you can see many of the pre-election hash tags have boiled away (e.g. #imvotinglabour etc.) to be replaced with a vociferous campaign by Lib Dem supporters to put pressure on Nick Clegg during his negotiations with the Conservative Party.

The main objective of this pressure seems focussed on a call for the Lib Dems not to give way on electoral reform (click to enlarge).

UK Politics Hash Tag Cloud, Sunday 9th May

The Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) South Africa has announced the completion of an agreement that will bring RadioGauge, the world’s only universal radio advertising effectiveness research study, to the South African market.

The RadioGAUGE will be introduced to the South African market at the inaugural RAB ‘RadioWorks Conference 2010′ in Capetown on 13th May by Mark Barber (Planning Director, RAB UK) and in Johannesburg on 18th May 2010 by Jason Brownlee (Founder, Dollywagon Media Sciences).

RadioGauge is the first radio advertising research tool of its kind that provides national radio advertisers with access to free research to quantify the effectiveness of their radio campaigns, including the impact of their radio creative.

RAB South Africa General Manager Norman Gibson says; “The RAB acknowledges that providing irrefutable proof of the effectiveness of radio advertising remains a critical component in answering radio’s accountability call. RadioGauge has successfully evaluated more than 200 radio campaigns in the UK; no other radio advertising effectiveness study has achieved quite the same impact, making RadioGauge the world leader in this field.”

“We very much look forward to working with media research experts Dollywagon Media Sciences and Other lines of enquiry who developed RadioGauge on behalf of the UK’s Radio Advertising Bureau. We’ll be working together to on RadioGauge to measure the effectiveness of some of the biggest radio advertising campaigns in South Africa.”

Dollywagon Media Sciences MD Jason Brownlee comments; “RadioGauge is a respected international brand with a hard earned reputation for delivering the world’s finest radio advertising effectiveness research. We are delighted that the RAB South Africa has become the first international licensee of the RadioGauge project.”

Said Mark Barber, Planning Director at the Radio Advertising Bureau, UK: “We’re delighted that RAB South Africa will be using RadioGauge, the first ongoing radio advertising measurement tool in the world. RadioGauge has been hugely successful in the UK, we have provided proof of effectiveness to advertisers accounting for some 80% of UK national Radio spend , leading to a £40m revenue benefit for the Commercial Radio industry, and we look to increase this even further over the coming year .”

-ends -

For more info about RadioGAUGE, contact

Norman Gibson at the RAB on (011) 325 4935 or email norman@rab.co.za

Jason Brownlee at Dollywagon Media Sciences on (+44) 01768 881321 or email jason.brownlee@dollywagon.com

The official election polls in the mainstream media show a tight race with the Conservatives slightly ahead of Labour and The Liberal Democrats. However, on Twitter the picture appears to be significantly different.

Our data shows that political hash tag usage related to the Lib Dem party is approximately 50% higher than that for Labour and 75% higher than for the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems have clearly won a greater share of Twitter traffic than the other two main parties. But does this reflect something the official polls are not picking up or does it mean that Twitter (and other social media) have failed to make a decisive impact on this election campaign?

Dollywagon’s guess is that Twitter’s role has been limited to providing an outlet for partisan views and the sharing of General Election “Oh My God” moments.

General Election Hash Tag Cloud 5th May 2010

Our latest General Election Hash Tag Cloud image supports this view – the picture reveals an interesting evolution from yesterday’s situation. The orange Lib Dem cloud at the top of the image is as populous and dense as ever.

But at the bottom of the picture we see a red surge of Labour supporting tags – this seems less to do with a spontaneous popular outpouring rather than a concerted effort by party activists to raise morale amongst the core vote.

Unfortunately for Labour we also see a small mushrooming of tags related to Manish Sood, the maverick Labour candidate in Norfolk who denounced Gordon Brown. But looking on the bright side, at least the ‘bigotgate’ hash tags seem to have mostly boiled away.

Positive Conservative tags seem less in evidence – they are definitely there but tend to be swamped by larger numbers of negative-Tory tags. The purple #philippastroud tags are a case in point – they have been the fastest growing hash tags of the last 48 hours but their key themes have failed to leak into the mainstream media.

This suggests that as far as UK politics is concerned, Twitter may become an enclave for left-of-centre and liberal views that are antithetical to mainstream conservative mores. Our view is that the cultural pendulum has swung away from the concerns of the liberal left, which partly explains the lack of interest in a ‘Tory Homophobes’ story among the main TV channels.

Twitter doesn’t seem to have rocked the boat too much during this General Election (TV certainly did), but when the cultural pendulum swings back towards the liberal left it could just set the agenda for the next election.

Dollywagon thought this was interesting and has been monitoring Twitter to see what it could tell us about the future outcome of the UK’s finely-balanced General Election campaign.

We’ve been monitoring political hash tag use on Twitter and have been analysing the networked data to understand how campaign themes and stories are related to each other. We’ve also been looking out for what issues and parties have been capturing real momentum in the Twitter network.

General Election Hash Tag Cloud 4th May 2010

Here is an image of our latest network analysis. What’s apparent is how much Liberal Democrat activity there is on Twitter – this volume or share of political Twitter activity has been maintained since the first televised leadership debate.

What is also interesting is the sudden appearance over the weekend of hash tag threads related to the Philippa Stroud story that ran in the last edition of The Observer.

We’ll be watching to see how this one grows – at present most of the tweets are campaigning for the mainstream media to run with this story. Many tweets are also contrasting its ‘bigot’ themes with Gordon Brown’s disaster in Rochdale the previous week – ‘#bigotgate’ hash tag use has receded a lot since last week.

In 1733 Renwick’s old village church had fallen into disrepair and a gang of workmen were detailed to demolish the ruin.

As the workmen pulled down the decaying stones a hideous creature suddenly flew out of the church foundations and rose up before them, causing the men to down-tools and run for their lives. However, one brave villager called John Tallantire took up the branch of a rowan tree and fought with the huge black creature until he killed it.

Over the years this story has refused to die and some villagers continue to speak in hushed tones of a huge black, bat-like figure that has been seen flying about the village on “certain evenings”. Others who may not see it have sensed its evil presence as a cold chill or faint shadow that passed over them.

Now, I love a good vampire story as much as the next man but as a rational bloke I never give old wives tales much credence. However, my recent adventure down an old abandoned lead mine in the mountain above Dollywagon HQ made me think again about the tale of the terrifying “Renwick Bat”.

I recently discovered the mine entrance dug high into the mountainside above the village and had ventured down it with my camera. I was feeling pretty relaxed until something odd occurred about 300m inside the rock-hewn tunnel.

Mines are spooky places at the best of times – there’s nothing quite like the sensation of being hundreds of meters underground surrounded by heavy rocks, dank air and utter darkness. But as my camera flash exploded through the tunnel it picked out something incongruous within a deep natural rock crevice.

As I moved closer to the fissure and shone my fading torch beam into it, the orange glow revealed something small and light coloured enveloped by what looked to be ancient red skin.

My imagination fell into an instant turmoil. Here I am, on my own 300m down an old abandoned lead mine and I’ve just found something old and leathery that’s clearly not made of rock. Other than one of Satan’s own hobgoblins, what else on earth could be hiding down here in the perpetual night? The Renwick Vampire Bat, perhaps?

I loosed off a few wild camera shots at the enigma to satisfy male pride and then made a quick exit to the surface. On my return home I viewed the images on my PC screen but all of them were blurred and indistinct, which only increased my sense of the paranormal.

I couldn’t leave the matter there so 2 weeks later I resolved to enter the mine again, but this time with more powerful lighting. When I returned to the same spot where I discovered the rock crevice, imagine my surprise to find it still occupied by the self-same tenant. Feeling a little braver this time, I shone a more powerful light into the crack and discovered what appeared to be nothing more than a hibernating bat!

I was now worried about disturbing the creature and having it flap around my ears in the claustrophobic darkness. I therefore quickly took several good photos, during which time the poor creature wriggled further into its hiding place and thereby proved beyond doubt that it was still alive.

I am by no means an expert on bats and I’m amazed to find one hidden so far underground at the end of a long and narrow lead mine. If anyone can identify the species of bat I discovered from my pictures I would be very grateful to hear from them and perhaps learn more about the habits of these remarkable little creatures.

I recently ‘celebrated’ a sensitive ‘milestone’ birthday and some of my friends and family felt the need to club together and buy me a small gift. I was asked what I wanted, but couldn’t think of anything I’d really enjoy.

The problem is that I’m a bit of a gadget fan and I’m already well tooled-up with the latest Sony Vaio laptop, a Blackberry Bold smart phone and a Mesh desktop PC packing a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a solid-state hard drive. It really would be greedy to expect anything more…

Nonetheless, I had to think of something genuinely new with a price tag that wouldn’t test the affection of my loved ones. I tried to remember what I liked doing in the few moments of free time I get between paying the mortgage and breaking up fights between my kids.

The answer was quick in coming – I like reading books. In fact, I spend more time relaxing with books than I waste goggling at the TV or mucking around on the Internet. Following this line of logic, I realised what I really wanted was a new eReader device to enhance my reading pleasure.

Now, I’m a bloke and there’s nothing I like more than sublimating my primal urge to hunt into an intensive round of pre-purchase gadget research on the Internet.

The first eReader to catch my attention was the Amazon Kindle 2. It has a great e-Ink screen for comfortable reading and a 3G wireless connection to the Amazon store. However, two issues let the Kindle down – firstly, you have to ‘import’ it from the US, which means one runs the gauntlet of a falling £/$ exchange rate, additional import taxes and a probable lack of meaningful customer support.

Secondly, the Kindle locks you into Amazon’s eco-system of Digital Rights Management – the only ebooks that work on the Kindle are those you can buy from Amazon itself. What’s more, you’re stuffed if you buy an ebook from Amazon today and then change your eReader in the future for a non-Kindle device – only Amazon eReaders can display ebooks purchased from Amazon.

The next piece of kit to catch my eye was the forthcoming iPad from Apple. Now, I know Apple of old – my first job in media was in 1993 when I used Apple Macs to design and typeset newspaper ads. I know all about the ‘Apple User Experience’ and, quite frankly, I’m not that arsed about it.

I therefore wasn’t carried away by all the iPad hype and focussed my attention instead on its ability to enhance my reading pleasure. To do this I undertook a simulation of the iPad reading experience by trying to get through a John Le Carre novel on my Vaio laptop (both use standard LCD colour screen technology).

The results of my experiment are as follows: my eyeballs were fried to a crisp and I tended to nod off at least 1 hour earlier than I usually would in the evenings. In other words, my reading pleasure was severely curtailed.

The lesson here is simple but important – if you love to read and want to spend as much time with your new eReader as you do with paper-based books, then black and white eInk screens are the only way to go.

The next device to be fixed within the laser beam of my attention was the Sony Touch eReader. There are two different models available in the UK – one has a 5 inch screen, which was too small for my liking (smaller pages equal more page turns).

The other is a 6 inch device which has the added advantage of a touch-screen interface that can be controlled with one’s finger rather than a stylus. Although not as sprightly as the touch screen on an iPhone it’s still pretty good and I found it both easy and pleasant to use. What’s more, the Sony Touch doesn’t have any rotten DRM issues and can read a wide variety of ebook formats (except the Kindle’s, of course).

There are other eReader devices available in the UK, but none of them seemed to match the performance, price, design or availability of the Sony Touch eReader. The Sony machine was therefore going to be my final choice, until I went to New York recently on a business trip.

Whilst mooching along Madison Avenue (as one does) I stumbled across a Sony Style Centre shop. Inside they had on display not only the 6″ Touch eReader, but also its new big brother – the 9″ Daily Edition that’s only available in the US.

The first thing I noticed when I put them side-by-side was that the newer 9″ Daily Edition had slightly better screen contrast and image quality. This is important because all the reviews to date of the Sony Touch 6″ have banged on about how it suffers from poorer screen quality compared to non-touch devices like the Kindle.

I wasn’t unduly bothered by this because I’d fiddled around with the Sony Touch 6″ in the UK and the screen seemed OK to me. However, when I saw the incremental screen improvement between the 6″ and 9″ models I immediately transferred my affections to the 9″ machine. Note to Sony: when it comes to eReader screen quality, punters will always go for that little bit more…

Then I took a look at the price – at $399 the 9″ Daily Edition was $140 more expensive than the 6″ model. Granted, the 9″ Daily Edition has a 3G wireless service that allows you to buy books over the airwaves in a fashion similar to the Amazon Kindle. But this service only works in the US so it’s useless to me.

On balance I was prepared to pay a premium for the 9″ Daily Edition because I like its bigger, clearer screen, groovy touch interface and open-standard ebook compatibility. At this point my wallet started to burn a hole in my pocket, which is usually a good sign that it’s time to cool off and go for a walk before living to regret a spontaneous purchase decision.

And I’m very glad I did go for a walk, down 5th Avenue to be precise, straight into a Barnes & Noble store. Barnes & Noble is not a familiar name in the UK, but it’s essentially our equivalent of the Waterstones chain of book shops. In the window of their 5th Avenue store was an eye-catching display for their new eReader product called the ‘Nook’.

I’d heard about this machine but hadn’t paid much attention to it because it was never likely to be available in the UK. Nonetheless, I was intrigued and popped into the store for a nosey. First impressions were mixed – the eInk reading screen caressed my eyes and the Nook’s design and build quality were lovely.

However, the Nook also had a second, smaller colour screen that responded to finger-touch control like an iPhone that was used for navigating through menu options. Initially I found this odd to use and a bit confusing, which turned me off. However, after returning to my hotel room and googling the Nook I found its reviews were very favourable, especially since a recent firmware update had resolved a few early teething problems.

Despite this, the next day I went back to the Sony store with every intention of buying the 9″ Daily Edition. But when I picked it up again I discovered that my initial feelings for the Sony machine had turned to ashes within my heart. The screen didn’t sparkle and the design seemed drab. With a shock I realised that I’d fallen for the Nook!

I dashed back over to 5th Avenue and my feelings were confirmed. After spending another 15 minutes playing with the Nook I got the hang of the touch-screen controls and felt very comfortable with them. The device looked great and felt comfortable in my hands. I was also pleased to learn that the Nook could read as many ebook formats as the Sony Touch. Finally, the 6″ eInk screen with its 16 shades of grey and sparkling clarity turned my head and sealed the deal. The Nook’s price was an added bonus – only $259.

It’s two weeks since I bought my Nook and I’ve enjoyed using it every day. Whether you want it or not I’ll be writing a full user review in the near future, but I can confirm that I’m very pleased with it.

Since I got back from 5th Avenue having a bit of Nookie at bed time has taken on a whole new meaning in our house…