There is a campaign running in NZ for your town to be the first town to get ultra fast broadband. It is called Gigatown. I was keen to join in and get points for Dunedin at the start until I read the rules. Today, a few months later and after recognising how hard the people behind the Dunedin campaign are working, I decided to join in again – it turns out I had forgotten why I didn’t bother in the first place.
It appears that all you have to do is put #gigatowndunedin after your posts on Facebook and other social media like Twitter and Instagram and you earn points for your town.
Except I hate Twitter so only use it rarely and Instagram can actually eff off. So, Facebook it is, that’s OK, I’m always sharing hilarious videos and photos of awesome stuff on there so #gigatowndunedin will be racking up the points in no time.
Except, your personal posts don’t count, only those posted on official/approved gigatown pages count. And they have to be at least a certain number words long and then have the hashtag. So the only way to earn any points is to comment on the official page’s pictures – just for the sake of it.
The points are weighted on population so smaller towns get more points per mention than bigger ones. Wanaka with it’s small population of holiday homes and rich people who get to stay at home enjoying the scenery and hashtagging all day long* (*possible exaggeration/generalisation) are storming ahead.
To top it off we have to do this until 30 September 2014 and then the top five have to fight it out all over again. It’s more trouble than it’s worth! Sure we will get the fastest broadband in the Southern Hemisphere but I can already stream high quality movies and play games online, how much faster could it get? I’m sorry Gigatown Dunedin, but even your earnestness can’t get me tweetin’ and ‘gramming.
Pigalina's Palace 