Category Archives: Twitter

Keep Your Eye Out for Shel Israel’s New Book Twitterville

Posted on by
1

My good friend, social media expert, and Naked Conversations co-author Shel Israel has recently announced that he’s going to be writing a new book called “Twitterville–How Business can Thrive in the new Global Neighborhoods.”

From a business perspective, it will cover and give examples of how social media, especially Twitter, us to come together, breaking down major geographical boundaries, to start conversations and form communities or as Shel like’s to put it global neighborhoods.

When it’s done, I’m confident that this book will be a must read.

What’s really fun is that he’s going to post a lot of his notes and text from the book on his blog and on Twitter as he writes it.  The world will be able to help give feedback and shape the book to make it even better.

Day 6 of the Barack Obama Twitter Watch

Posted on by
5

So, I just friended Barack Obama on Twitter.  I figured it’s about time, considering he’s now President-Elect.  Much to my surprise, he his staff hasn’t tweeted in 6 days.

Will he pick it back up again or will the weight of the mighty government bureaucracy put a muzzle on his grassroots Web 2.0-style efforts?

Twitter, Retweeting, and Sharing

Posted on by
1

The social Web has really redefined the Web in a way that we haven’t really seen since the onset of online search.  People are using their online friends to find information online and as a filter to what is and isn’t important.

Twitter has really established itself as a popular townsquare.  This is a venue where people come together to share their status, thoughts, and cool things they find.

It’s a platform for sharing.

My buddy Shel wrote a really cool post about a phenomenom that we’re seeing crop up… retweeting. It’s where one person shares a cool link or insight on Twitter and then someone sees that  and ones to share that tweet in it’s entirety with their friends.

Retweeting allows thoughts to be shared from one group of people to another and maybe to another.  This gives my thoughts and ideas or maybe the thoughts of others that I want to share a potentially endless reach and the ability to reach audiences that they would’ve never otherwise gotten to.

What’d be cool if they created an interface element within Twitter that’d make it be easier to retweet something, like they currently have for favoriting and replying.

Current TV to Mash Together Twitter with the Presidential Debates

Posted on by
1

Current TV and Twitter are doing something really cool for the Presidential debates. Current TV is going to overlay people’s Twitter comments on-top of the live feed.

Today Current TV announced their plan to Hack the Debate with an innovative new way to make television interactive. “As Twitter users tweet throughout the course of the live broadcasts, Current and Twitter will collect comments regarding the debate and layer the individual messages over the debate feed.” Why stop at the web and mobile when we can create a new features for democracy?

So… this year,  do something different. Don’t watch the presidential debates on the major networks.  Watch it on Current.

Shel Israel’s “7 Tips for new Twitter Users”

Posted on by
Reply

A lot of my friends and co-workers have been dipping their toe in the Twitter pool.  They hear me and others talk about it and want to give it a whirl.  Some stay and some don’t.

My friend Shel Israel provides some AWESOME advice for anyone who’s new to Twitter.  It’s a recommended read.  Check it out:

So, if you are new to Twitterville, it is a friendly place. But people need to know a bit about you in order to want to spend time in conversation with you. This will not happen if you simply start and account, reveal nothing about yourself and your interests and then go around collecting follows. Some people may follow you back automatically, but it seems to me that will matter very little if the two of yo have nothing to talk about, other than how many new follows you’ve added.

There are a few things yo might consider doing first.

Follow Clearspring’s CEO Hooman Radfar on Twitter

Posted on by
Reply

As you know, I’m a big fan of Twitter as a way to talk to and listen to your personal community.

Well I’ve been having this conversation with the CEO of Clearspring Hooman Radfar.  He’s incredibly active and has a MASSIVE personal community. He didn’t use Twitter.

I think it’d be a HUGE service for him.  Yet, he was skeptical.

Well, he’s still seems a little skeptical but now he’s experimenting with Twitter. So all I ask is, follow @hoomanradfar.

Twitter, Serendipity, and Seattle

Posted on by
1

So… I’m sitting here in a Starbucks in Seattle.  It’s been a great weekend!!!

Upon arriving here, I was just kind of tooling around and seeing the sights.  I was meeting up with some friends for dinner later.

Unbeknownst to me, my buddy Saul from FreshBooks just happened to be in Seattle as well.  We ended up meeting up and he joined my posse for dinner.

How did we end up finding each other?  We are Twitter friends.  I was twittering about being in Seattle and he saw it and sent me a message.

It was cool to see first hand how Twitter can help with starting serendipitous adventures in your life.  Saul metup with us and we all had a grand time.

Have you had any serendipitous adventures because of Twitter?

I’d pay for a Twitter Pro account. Would You?

Posted on by
6

Seems like the only thing the Web 2.0 blogosphere has been talking about as of late has been Twitter.  Whether it’s been problems they’ve had with scaling company to handle the community or scaling it’s infrastructure, everyone has something to say.

Seems like this is a first rate problem.  People whine and moan about things because it’s a service they’re so wrapped up in and feel personally invested with.  That rocks.

I’d be one of those folks who’s become very personally invested in the service.  It’s a primary way that I talk with a big chunk of my community.

Because it’s something I’ve come to depend on, when there is talk about Twitter business models, i’d be one to support paying $5-10/month for a Twitter Pro service.   I’m with Jason.

What do you think?  Do you depend on Twitter?  Would you be willing to pay for it?  If so how much?

BTW – Om Malik has a really interesting post about how Twitter should charge its super users.

Twitter Needs a Community Manager

Posted on by
7

After today’s and the last few days’ drama around Twitter, I think they need a Community Manager.

While there management has been kind of accessible, they really need someone who’s smack dab in the middle of the folks that use the product on a daily basis.

They need someone who’ll communicate constantly what’s going on and help even more so maintain this relationship.

Twitter is obviously a tool that folks depend on so it’s extra important to give special attention to the community and it’s feelings about it.

It’s all too easy for a community to turn on a product and move somewhere else.

PS – No, I’m not offering myself for the job.  I’m very happy at Clearspring.

Why Twitter Was So Successful at SXSW… Geography

Posted on by
4

So Twitter was a big success at SXSW for bringing people together.  As was laid out by Jeremiah Owyang, it was used to revolt against the Zuckerberg/Lacey interview, improve panels, and to find/start parties.

But what empowered Twitter to be so helpful? Most of it’s users were in the same geographic area.

I have Twitter friends from all over the country… all over the world.  There are times when I want to be able to see what everyone in my “global neighborhood” is doing.  That is fine.

There are other times when I want to go grab a beer and I’m curious what everyone else is up to.   What my friends in Boulder, Colorado are doing doesn’t help me find beer drinking company here in Washington DC.

It’d be cool if there was a mobile app that would append my geo-location or maybe just my zipcode on to the end of all my and my friends’ Twitter messages.

In addition to saying I always want to get SMS messages from certain twitter users, I could get SMS messages when tweets happen in my same geographic location.  Seems like this would be useful.

This make sense?