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Is there anything sadder than the current sight of Danny Cipriani and Gavin Henson trailing around looking for a new 'angle' to work, having been dumped by their respective (more famous) girlfriends?

 
Danny recently felt the momentary return of the paps' klieg flashes on his pretty face when Alexandra Burke made a beeline for him. But now she too has moved on, it's all gone a bit darko for Danny again and he was last pictured looking slightly messy exiting a nightclub (Faces in Essex, surely?) in a beautiful Addison Lee people mover. Cool move Danny. Leave the Gallardo at home. What next? The N34 nightbus with a kebab and a can of Magners?

 
Meanwhile Big Gav has been inviting reality TV programme concepts (clearly channelling Peter Andre's stellar post-divorce career trajectory – er, downward…) with little overt success and has now put word out that he would like to try his hand at actual acting.

 
  
Boys, time to man up. The girls have gone. Gone! It was good while it lasted. But now you need to find pace in relative anonymity. We suggest a call to Will Carling. He hath trod the path you face: famous wife (Julia) and possibly the most famous 'squeeze' of all time (HRH) and then it all went t*ts up.

But, you know, there's solace to be found in commentating on the Under-12s quarter finals on some scratchy digital channel. Late at night. In New Zealand.

The Social Media Map: Real Time Animation Anyone?



So the Social Media world now has its very own map – http://mashable.com/2010/08/11/2010-social-networking-map/ . Lovely as this is (assuming you like Tolkien) is it not destined to date faster than the Mappa Mundi? Social Media is so fast moving that I fear the only way to make such an entity work is to animate it…in real time!



Fascinating as this snap shot is surely it is just that; a snap shot in time. The empires of Social Media will doubtless be as transitory as those who rose and fell in the wake of Rome. Since the advent of Web 2.0 and the associated rise of Social Media the centres of power have shifted so like many tectonic plates, driving a few into seemingly unassailably lofty positions, Facebook and MySpace, whilst others have been driven into the sea like so many Atlantises – RIP Bahu and Yahoo 360!



Even the most lofty need to take care though; a more apposite use for the phrase, 'All glory is fleeting' is hard to imagine than where anything web based is concerned and Social Media in particular. The most interesting thing about this map for me is what lies beneath. What lies beneath that opaque southern ocean where the new Gods of the Social Media world are still slumbering, their might just waiting solidification before powering north, glacier-like to reform the landscape in their own image.



Bravo to the team at XKCD for this sterling effort. Just one thing: can we have a new one tomorrow….?